Month: July 2015

The Trouble Makers of CCRG and Harm City Havoc men’s league have ganged up for a roller derby double header in White Marsh this Saturday, May 9, 2015 — our first at-home travel season bout of 2015.Tickets for this weekend and season ticket packages are available now.

You may think you know the ladies of Charm when we play as the Night Terrors, Junkyard Dolls, Speed Regime and Mobtown Mods, but our travel teams are like the Voltron of roller derby. Throughout the home season, the four home teams battle it out for the Donaghy Cup, but when it’s all over, these skaters come together to form top-ranking interleague teams that represent Baltimore to teams around the world. The ferocity you see in home season games is just a hint of what you’ll see in the travel season.

The Trouble Makers of CCRG and Harm City Havoc men’s league have ganged up for a roller derby double header in White Marsh this Saturday, May 9, 2015 — our first at-home travel season bout of 2015.Tickets for this weekend and season ticket packages are available now.

You may think you know the ladies of Charm when we play as the Night Terrors, Junkyard Dolls, Speed Regime and Mobtown Mods, but our travel teams are like the Voltron of roller derby. Throughout the home season, the four home teams battle it out for the Donaghy Cup, but when it’s all over, these skaters come together to form top-ranking interleague teams that represent Baltimore to teams around the world. The ferocity you see in home season games is just a hint of what you’ll see in the travel season.

The Charm City Rollergirls are busy preparing for their 2011 home season starting January 29th and that means the most exciting time of year- home team drafts! The Junkyard Dolls, Mobtown Mods, Night Terrors and 2010 Champs Speed Regime had a tough time choosing from an extremely talented pool of skaters. Each home team said goodbye to some of their most veteran players who will be greatly missed.

Show your support for Baltimore and help a vital community organization reopen its doors through ourBooster campaign.

As residents and representatives of Baltimore, the Charm City Roller Girls felt the impact of the city’s unrest in the wake of Freddie Gray’s tragic death. When violence erupted in the city, businesses and community centers were damaged, including the Youth Empowered Society’s Drop-In Center for homeless youth. We believe what makes Baltimore great is how we come together in the face of tragedy, and that’s why we’ve organized a fundraiser so you can show your love for the city and help this great organization re-open their doors. To help with this cause, please visit our Booster campaignand order one of the T-shirts we’ve designed in support of the city. You can also donate directly to the shelter through the link provided.

From the YES mission statement:

YES works to end youth homelessness in Baltimore by supporting formerly homeless youth to become leaders in our community and by providing urgently-needed direct services to homeless youth … YES’s vision is that all Baltimore youth will easily access the resources they need to achieve stable housing and become healthy, successful adults.

You can learn more about the center at Yesdropincenter.com. The Baltimore Sun reported on the incident and the damage, which you can read about here.

Charm City skaters volunteered for the Patterson Park spring cleaning project in April because we’re always looking for ways to help our city be its best.

We are proud of the many ways we’ve seen this city come together to recover from the violence and we believe in the mission of YES to empower the young people of Baltimore. Please help support their causeby buying a t-shirt or donating directly to the drop-in center recovery effort.

The members of the Charm City Roller Girls are talented on and off the track and one of our very own, Junkyard Dolls rookie Whipstick (aka Monica Gallagher) shares her experiences as a derby girl in her webcomic Bonnie N. Collide.

Gutter Magazine recently reviewed Bonnie N. Collide and picked a few of their favorite strips. The CCRG blog will be featuring Bonnie N. Collide each week. Check out Whipstick’s other work at her site,Eat Your Lipstick, and see her and the rest of CCRG hit the track this Saturday at DuBurns Arena!

Did you know that the Charm City Roller Girls have a lower age requirement than many leagues? We only require our skaters to be 18 years of age, rather than the 21 and up requirements of many leagues around the country. But what about those young ladies who can’t vote yet? How do THEY get their derby fix?

A wave of Junior Roller Derby leagues are starting up across the country. The Junior Roller Derby Association has formed, and provides information about member leagues, modified rules, and assistance in starting a junior roller derby league. Recently a junior derby girl, Fallon Angel of the Seattle Derby Brats, was featured in the WFTDA members magazine fiveonfive. She’s 16 years old, and she is ready to take the derby world by storm in a few years!

The Charm City Roller Girls want to support young women in the pursuit of their derby dream, and since Whip It was released, more girls than ever before want to know when they can skate with their derby heroes. We love meeting our fans at our monthly bouts and other events, but we have the most fun on wheels!

Girl Scout Troops 1205 and 4165 of Baltimore had the opportunity to watch an Charm City All Stars practice and attended an open skate at North Point Skateland with some of their favorite roller girls. Paige Fault (Junkyard Dolls) and Neurotic Tendency (Fresh Meat) talked to the girls about the rules (and the outfits!) as we watched All Stars like Allie B. Back, Holly GoHardly, and Duchess of Torque at practice.

Rules were explained, skates were tied, and autographs aplenty were signed.

Roller derby is one of few contact sports available to women, and the derby culture embraces women of all ages, making it one of few sports that can be played for a lifetime! We’re also proud to play a sport that welcomes all shapes and sizes, and as a new sport we’re open to lifelong athletes and former couch potatoes. We’re happy to be showing these girls what women can do with determination and enthusiasm, and we hope to keep inspiring new generations of skaters.

These are your future Roller Girls, Charm City! Look out for them in our 10th season in 2015!!

Since the Charm City Roller Girls formed in 2005, Lady Quebeaum (pronounced “Kaboom”) has been a driving force within the league. Her league mates mostly call her LQ, and many skaters look to her as the wise woman of CCRG. She’s known for being chatty on the track and off, giving great advice and perspective to newer skaters, and for never — despite broken bones and broken hearts — giving up. After 10 charming years, LQ looks back on the challenges of playing derby and the evolution of the sport. Bask in the derby wisdom, and remember to get your tickets to see LQ lead her team, the Mobtown Mods, as they take on the Junkyard Dolls on Saturday, Feb. 21.

When and where did you start playing derby?

I started here in Baltimore in 2005. A friend said, “Hey, we’re trying to start a roller derby league. Come on up.” So I did.

What are some of the significant changes you’ve seen in your time with CCRG?

You have to go back before there WAS a CCRG. We were a handful of people trying to get organized. Most of us had never even seen the game played before. We weren’t sure what roller derby was. Roller derby wasn’t sure what it was in 2005. We had folks show up in swell outfits but balk about actually doing any skating during practice time. Members had deep philosophical discussions about whether or not we were going to be a separatist community that disallowed men’s participation in any part of it. We practiced without helmets until someone got a concussion, and our practices included wresting on the whistle. We made EVERYTHING up as we went along, occasionally getting some help from nearby leagues (thank you, Philly Roller Derby) who had been around just a little longer than we had.

There is definitely less showmanship and more athleticism than there was at the beginning. People used to take smoke breaks during halftime, and I remember getting my toestop stuck in someone’s tutu once and having to call the jam from the floor. Now we’re all lifting and eating quinoa.

I’ve also witnessed the maturation of an organization over the years. I have to say, having stepped out of an administrative leadership roll a year or two ago, I’m confident in the folks at the helm at this point. Have you ever heard of Tuckman’s stages of group development? Forming, storming, norming, and performing? We’ve gone through that, in macro and micro versions at different times.

How do you approach derby differently than you did at the beginning, or how is your approach different from that of newer skaters?

Every year I have played, this game has been different. So I recognize that and build on what I’ve learned in the previous incarnations of the game. One way that my approach now may be different from that of newer skaters is that I just do not stress. I used to want to throw up before every game. You couldn’t MAKE me nervous at this point. I’ve already fallen on my face wearing ill-fitting hotpants in front of thousands. I’ve already been booed. I’ve already been cheered. I’ve already been hauled away in an ambulance. I’ve already delighted and disappointed fans and teammates. I’ve already wowed and I’ve already been forgotten by hundreds of people. It’s one jam at a time to the best of my ability in that moment. That’s it. That’s all there is.

Everybody knows derby can be tough, to say the least. Lots of skaters quit after a few years. Why do you keep playing?

The short and easy answer is because I still enjoy it. The other answer is that I keep playing so that people like me will keep playing. There are going to be 20 year old life-long athletes who are drawn to this sport now that it is somewhat established (YOU’RE WELCOME). But there are also going to be people like me who are going to be drawn to it. I wasn’t raised to be an athlete. I started doing this when I was thirty. I was a zaftig single mom with a preschooler and a full-time day job who biked to work every day because she couldn’t afford the subway. This belongs to us, too.

One time in our first year, we did a promo piece with The Today Show, and stuck Natalie Morales on roller skates. I was one of our talking heads back then. The piece garnered a lot of positive attention both to the sport, which was very new at the time, and to our league. And we had a couple of interesting detractors, including a skater from another league who suggested we should instead “show off some of our fit girls.” She retired ages ago. I’m still here at 41. My resting pulse is 49 and I can bike a Century in my sleep. I win.

The spelling of my derby name is a result of a name challenge by a West Coast skater who had a similar name. At the time, if your name was too similar to another skater’s, they could ask you to change it. She was very gracious about it, but I was about to walk into divorce court when we finally talked, so I offered to change the spelling and be done with the issue. She retired about five years ago, too. I win again. Ray Lewis is younger than me, too. He also retired.,

I’ve broken bones for this sport. I have two plates and fourteen screws in my legs. I’ve spent hard earned money, and I’ve lost precious time with my family for this. There are going to be heartbreaking setbacks that make you question everything about your life choices. But heartbreaking setbacks are in every arena in life, not just derby. You can let them crush you, or you can find a way to deal.

This is the first year in quite a while where I haven’t been nursing a broken leg that I’m not rostered on the All-Star team, and that’s hard. But the truth is that I’ve only played three games since my surgery (for a broken leg) and the loss of my mom this past year, and I’m still getting my chops back. It’s hard work and it isn’t instant gratification. But nothing on this earth makes me work harder for a yes than getting a no.

One time a few months ago I was lamenting out loud over the kitchen sink how I was feeling out of shape, wearing an extra twenty grief and fracture pounds, feeling like a bunch of muscles were missing. I thought I was muttering to myself, but my son, now an adolescent, overheard me. He said, in his most disdainful adolescent “duh” tone that he could muster, off the cuff and without thinking, “Uh yeah. You’re giant and strong, Mom.” So we can all stop what we’re doing right now, because apparently we smashed the patriarchy and won.

Care to make any predictions about the next 10 years of the sport?

I haven’t the foggiest notion, but I hope it’s still fun for people to play.

The first bout of 2014 in the newly remodeled Du Burns Arena gave us some very exciting games offered to a sell-out crowd!

First, Speed Regime set their sights on the Mobtown Mods. Ela Trick started off the home team season as lead jammer earning Speed Regime 14 points. Talk about starting with a BANG!

The Mobtown Mods were missing a few key players, but never stopped working to close the large gap earned by Speed Regime in the first half in a scrappy, hard-fought game. While Poison Princess earned the Mods 50 points during the game, Allie B. Back was on target, racking up triple digits for 102 of 162 of Speed Regime’s points. Yet, the Mods never gave up and rallied some teamwork in the second half, and overcame a large point deficit to finish only 36 points behind the Regime. Expect more from the Mods this season as they seek to gain a few new players in time for February while Roxy Balboa and Lady Quebeaum are on the mend.

Grrrcia, Roxy Wrecks and E.D. Sledgewick had their first bouts as official members of the Mobtown Mods. Mods welcomed a few guest skaters for this bout; Kamikaze Cash who earned her first penalty with us in the 1st half of the bout, way to go! Merry Khaos, Poison Princess, Scarriett Tubman, and Raven Darkhold also donned the red dresses as guests. O’Chit swapped out last year’s Mod’s uniform and now with the Speed Regime, joined by Sadie Stingray, who had her first official bout with the girls in green. Grrrcia of the Mods and Terror IzHer of the Speed Regime were named MVPs.

FINAL SCORE:
REGIME OVER MODS
162-138

The second matchup of the night, reigning 2014 Donaghy Cup champs, the Junkyard Dolls, donned some new gray uniforms to take on the Night Terrors, back for revenge after a tough 2013 season. Cool blue and calculating, the Terrors racked up a significant lead in the first half, which was eroded by an impressive series of jams by Free Radical late in the half, bringing the score to 105 Dolls, 107 Terrors at halftime.

The Junkyard Dolls continued to dominate early in the second half, but the Terrors came roaring back to secure a massive lead, taking control during a handful of jammer penalties earned by Dolls’ jammers. Using quick feet and evasive maneuvers, Nuckin’ Futz of the Terrors earned an impressive 143 of the Terror’s 276 points, while Free Radical earned 90. In the end, the Dolls could not overcome the late game points loss and graciously lost their first game at DuBurns since 2012. Hittsburgh, in her official Night Terror debut, was rewarded with MVP for her solid blocking game and dominating presence on the track, Free Radical took home the MVP award for the Dolls after being responsible for major momentum changes on the track.

On the Night Terrors, members Scarring Nightly and Guantanamurda had their first bout in blue, with She Guevara moving to the Terrors after years with the Mods. In grey, Killy from Philly, GG Hardy, Susy Pow and Throttle-her played their hearts out in their first games as Junkyard Dolls. Returning to the Junkyard Dolls after years playing for the L.A. Derby Dolls, Cherrylicious was right at home as a guest skater.

FINAL SCORE
TERRORS OVER DOLLS
276-170

All of us here at Charm are saying a tearful farewell to our officials Serial Killer and Mercy Buckets, as this January bout was their last one with us. Thank you for all of the tough love you gave to our league! On a lighter note, officials would like to congratulate Jazzie Jukebox on her first officiated game on skates, as well as welcome retired skater Quickshot Kitty and returning official Zebra Caiques.

Join us Saturday, February 22, again at Du Burns Arena for even more roller derby action as your favorite Baltimore girls look to break some hearts on the way to earning the Donaghy Cup! Tickets are available at www.missiontix.com!

The Night Terrors truly are terrifying, especially considering their reputation for speed and finesse. “The Terrors have great speed and agility,” says skater Kamikaze Cash. “We recognize where we need to be and get there quick!”

Cash may be biased, but she says her team is just plain cool. “In my opinion after joining the Terrors, I think we are a group of really coooool girls. Not particularly cool-headed but like some cooool people. The coolest.” Why’s that? Because they are “super chill, but focused and driven.” In other words, the only drama you can expect from these ladies will be on the derby track.

Cash says she appreciates the chance to learn from her teammates and coaches. “I get to skate with a lot of experienced skaters and coaches who are patient with each other. They also give great advice and ways to improve as a skater!”

“One thing I will remember forever that I had never thought of before was advice from Nuckin’ Futz: Only skate as fast as you can stop. Definitely helped gauge how fast I should be skating as a jammer coming up to a pack.”

While this team may be known for their smooth skills and unnervingly cool attitude, just under the surface is a lot of hard work. “I truly appreciate the dedication and support my teammates provide one another,” Cash says. “We also wouldn’t be as awesome without Mr. Pistol and Truth Hurtz running the bench and keeping us all together!”